The mum – who has yet to be identified – was in the dock in Nassau, Bahamas when the Norwegian registered ship sailed off from the port.

Footage recorded by a passenger on board the departing ship, which was uploaded to YouTube, shows the tearful woman falling to her knees.

The footage, which was recorded by another passenger on 21 April, sees the boat slowly pull away from the port as the distraught mother drops to her knees and sobs.

The scenario may be every parent's worst nightmare but the mother doesn't engineer much sympathy with her fellow passengers.

In the two-minute video, posted online by passenger Scott Thomas last Sunday, a man tells the camera: ‘You see that right there? That is someone that has missed the boat and apparently she has her kids on the boat and she’s not on there. ‘That right there is not cool. She was yelling, “My kids are on there”.’

A woman adds: ‘I didn’t think they would do that. I guess I was wrong.’

The man responds: ‘I told you they’d do that. When it’s 5:30 it’s 5:30, not 5:31.’

The father of the children was on the 4,000-passenger ship, according to a passenger.

Brady Forbes told various news agencies that the "kids and dad were on board the ship at the right time, but the mom was not on the ship yet".

The Norwegian Breakaway was on a seven-day cruise to the Bahamas and Bermuda after departing from its home port in New York on 17 April.